


Ser Alexander and the Green Hills of Earth

by Dakota (The_Fenspace_Collective), Mal-3 (The_Fenspace_Collective)



Series: Candle In The Dark: A Peculiar Saga of the Sea of Time [6]
Category: BattleTech: MechWarrior, Fenspace
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-04
Updated: 2014-04-04
Packaged: 2018-01-18 02:26:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1411519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Fenspace_Collective/pseuds/Dakota, https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Fenspace_Collective/pseuds/Mal-3
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Part 2 of the Quest of the Nova Cats:</i> For seven long years the Grey Knight Company has quested up and down the Inner Sphere, searching for the mythical hill that speaks to them in their dreams. Now that hill has been found in the most unlikely of places - an exact duplicate of Terra hiding in the Periphery.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ser Alexander and the Green Hills of Earth

**Jumpship** _**Pridwen** _ **, High Tellus Orbit**  
 **8 December 2030**

To give in without so much as throwing a punch grated against every Clan instinct. To then be dragged off the pirate point and forced to watch the Fenspacers defend their world without _helping_ – the whole reason they’d joined this mad expedition in the first place – grated against every knightly instinct. But the Fenspacers had won in the end, or near enough as the Grey Knights could tell, so now all that was left to do was sit in orbit under guard while Fenspace spun lazily beneath them.

The guards were surprisingly polite, all kitted out in red tunics and freefall combat gear. “You’ll be called to Luna soon enough,” they said. “Might as well stay calm and enjoy the view.”

“It’s a pretty world,” Alex Harris said absently as the blue-white world spun beneath him. His guard grunted as Alex fiddled with the viewer controls. He could see the shapes of the continents and there was something naggingly familiar about them...

Wait.

Alex traced the outlines. There was Brittania, Gaul and Hispania beneath it, Germania and Italia to the east, Africa to the south, America to the west. His eyes widened as he realized he was looking down at _Terra_ , nowhere near where Terra was supposed to be but the shapes of continents couldn’t lie. Not even the Star League had the power to reshape worlds on that scale; this was impossible, and yet there it was. “My god,” he muttered.

The guard picked up on Alex’s shock and chuckled. “You’re quick,” he said. “Most people don’t twig to it until we tell them.”

“I’m a student of history,” Alex replied. “ _How?_ ”

“No clue. You think you’re confused, we went to bed one night and had jumpships knocking the next morning. Still no idea how or why, just that it did.”

“I see,” Alex said, and he did. The mechanisms of how Terra came to be in the Periphery were irrelevant in the end. Alex Harris, itinerant mystic, knight errant, pirate hunter and one-time Star Captain in the Nova Cat touman knew _why_ it had happened. “Blessed be Our Lady, whose designs are grand and intricate, and who reveals Her plans to us when we are ready,” he said softly, drawing an odd look from his guard.

Alex didn’t care. The years of searching had not been in vain.

He’d found the hill of kites.

~***~

**Kandor City Spaceport**  
 **22 December 3020**

After all the debriefings, interrogations and political turmoil of the invasion, the Grey Knights were turned looks in the streets of Kandor with a vague admonition to “be good.” Naturally, interest turned towards Terra. To a man, the Knights wanted to see the place for themselves, but even more than that they wanted to be the first one to reach the surface. It almost came to a Circle of Equals, but Ser Alex pulled rank and took the honored position himself, picking a slot on the first offered dropship to Terra.

Standing in front of said dropship, Alex gave the white spacecraft a long critical look. The _Lunar Fox_ was clearly one of the local ships, a vehicle carrier judging by what he could see of the interior. The dock workers called it a “Tau _Manta_ clone,” whatever that was when it was at home. It seemed that the Fen liked copying fictional designs as much as building their own. But then again, if you could build groundcars that flew, why not? Alex shook his head as a small yellow groundcar leapt off a nearby pad, folded its wheels underneath it and shot into the black sky on some mysterious errand. He still had some trouble accepting that the Fen could make anything fly.

“Oi! You Captain Harris?” A female voice called out behind him. Alex turned slightly as the woman in question stepped up to him. She was wearing a cut-off, ratty looking shirt with a fist grasping a wrench and the word GEARJAMMERS emblazoned in block letters below. She made an elaborate bow, yanking off an equally-ratty leather top hat to reveal a wave of red hair and – to Alex’s mild surprise – long, pointy ears.

“Yes,” Alex acknowledged with a bow of his own. “Captain Dakota?”

The woman laughed. “Nah, I’m Vanessa Darkblade, acting chief engineer and furry rustler. Dakota’s off dealing with the dockmaster, he’ll be here with the ‘hog in a mo.”

“Ah.” Alex gave Darkblade a more critical once-over. Despite the shabby condition of her clothes, the woman was a walking toolbox. Even her hat had a dozen small tools lining the crown. “What’s a hog?” he asked.

“Groundcar,” she replied. “The _Fox_ ’s a fine ship to be sure, but she isn’t exactly street legal.”

“Ah.” And of course Alex felt a little stupid about that. Alex turned his attention back to the _Lunar Fox_ , and after a minute noticed that Vanessa kept giving him tiny, sneaking glances. “Something on my face?” he said. Vanessa jumped a little, laughing nervously.

“No, no,” she said with an embarrassed smile. “Or maybe yeah. I was just wondering where your eyepatch was.”

“You know, that’s the third time somebody’s asked me that in as many days,” Alex noted. “I don’t get what the deal is.”

“That’s a bit of a long story. You a horror fan, Captain?”

“More of a Walter Scott guy to be honest.”

“Well, there’s this show see, and one of the guys is–HOSHIT!” Vanessa grabbed Alex by the shoulder and yanked him to the side as a big green military vehicle rumbled past.

“OI! FUZZY! Where’d you learn to drive? You’re gonna kill someone one of these days!” Vanessa yelled.

“Haven’t yet, longears!” The driver yelled back as the groundcar rumbled up the ramp and into the vehicle bay.

“That’s a ‘hog, incidentally,” Vanessa said to Alex.

“Huh,” Alex huh’d. “Doesn’t look like a hog, more like a big cat.”

“What, like a puma?”

“…I suppose?” Alex had the sense he was missing a joke there, but shrugged it off. “So that’s Captain Dakota?”

“The one and only. And he’s running late again as usual. C’mon, let’s get aboard so we don’t miss our clearance window.” Vanessa jogged up the ramp, Alex close behind.

The hog heaved a little on its shocks as Captain Dakota disembarked. At first Alex though the man was wearing some sort of elaborate mask as a joke, but on closer inspection it seemed that yes, Dakota really did appear to be a man with a dog’s head instead of a human one. Then Dakota stood fully upright and the sheer size of the creature registered in Alex’s mind.

 _Genecaste!_ The word ripped across Alex’s forebrain and he barely kept himself from reaching for a confiscated sidearm. The old stories from sibko of men using forbidden science to create monsters echoed in his ears. Courtly manners were the only thing keeping him from screaming, running or perhaps charging the genecaste monster and trying to beat it to death with his fists.

“So, you’re Captain Harris?” The dog-creature had a very man-like pleasant basso voice. Alex didn’t respond. “I do think his mind just blue-screened,” Dakota noted. “Ah well, he’s in the bay. We can just leave him here and then roll him off when we get to Sea-Tac.”

“I’ll go fetch the cargo ties, shall I?” Vanessa added helpfully. Alex unlocked with a single full-body twitch.

“No!” he blurted. “Ah, no, that… that won’t be necessary.”

“First time seeing a major mod, right?” Dakota asked sympathetically. Alex nodded, grateful the man (Dog? Dog-man? Whatever.) hadn’t taken any apparent offense.

“I saw some people with odd features – those ‘cat girls?’ – but I didn’t know it could be quite so… extensive. If you don’t mind my asking...”

Dakota laughed, an odd blend of human and canine. “That, Captain, is a long story.”

“And one best told once we’re in the air,” Vanessa interjected. “We’ve got twenty minutes before our window closes, and I don’t want to be stuck in the bloody queue behind eight Warsie transports and the bloody _Blue Midget_.”

~***~

**Seattle-Tacoma International Spaceport**  
 **Some two hours later**

Alex Harris stepped off the gangway and became the first knight of the Nova Cats to set foot on the hill as a living man. He took in the sights (Admittedly the airport, so the sights didn’t amount to a whole lot.) and came to a sudden, depressing conclusion.

“I don’t recognize anything here,” he said.

“Something wrong?” Dakota rumbled from behind him. Alex shook his head.

“It’s just that... _everything_ is wrong.” Alex pointed north, to where the top of the Space Needle could be seen in the far distance. “The only thing I recognize in the skyline is _that_ , and I am not sure if that is because it is a landmark from my time, or because the architecture is familiar.”

“Where to? Up into town, see the sights?”

“Maybe in a minute,” Alex replied. “We need to go west first.”

“Eh?” Vanessa said. “Why west? There’s nothing out there but suburbs and a fuckton of trees.”

“There is... something there.” Alex said with a frustrated shake of his head. “I cannot explain it, but it is something I need to see with my own eyes. Even if it does not _exist_ I need to see it, which I realize makes little sense but-”

“Hey hey, easy there Captain. If west is where you need to go,” Dakota said, throwing the Warthog into drive, “then west it is.”

~***~

An hour later, an olive-drab military fighting vehicle carrying a dog-cat-thing, an elf and a clandestine Nova Cat tooled slowly down a road in unincorporated Kitsap County. Dakota kept the Warthog steady while Alex Harris leaned out and over the windshield, head turning back and forth as if looking for something. In the backseat Vanessa Darkblade played Angry Birds Hyperspace on her omnitool and did her level best to avoid terminal boredom.

“Here! _Here!_ Stop the car!” Alex barked. Dakota obediently hit the brakes and Alex jumped out, running into the intersection and stopping with an astonished look on his face. Vanessa sat up as the car jerked to a halt and looked around. The stretch of road wasn’t anything too different from rural suburbs in her native Australia, a not-incredibly-well maintained stretch of asphalt with unimproved shoulders, lots of trees hiding large but not expensive houses from each other. It wasn’t suburban hell but at the same time Vanessa couldn’t figure out what made Harris so giddy about the place.

“And here is?” she asked.

“This is it! This is the _Court of the Star League!_ This is where Ian Cameron built his capital city! The palace throne room would be right here! Founder and Great Father,” Alex said, not noticing Vanessa’s ears twitching, nor the look she gave Dakota. “I have journeyed long and fought many battles, and here I stand, first of my sib to reach the promised land. This is the greatest day of my life!”

“Well, it sounds like you’re having a moment,” Dakota said dryly. “Do you want us to leave you to it, _Star Captain?_ ”

Alex nodded absently, stopped, and looked up with mixed surprise and abject horror. “Wait...” he said. “You... _how?_ ”

“You should’ve paid more attention to the briefing document, mate,” Vanessa said. “We know _all_ sorts of stuff we’re not supposed to.”

“Oh god.” Alex groaned. “Oh god, I cannot believe... Ser Alicia will strap me to a _fusion rocket_ when she finds out.”

Dakota’s ears twitched. “Ser Alicia?” he said innocently. “Shouldn’t that be something like Galaxy Commander- OW!” he yelped as Vanessa slapped him upside the head.

Alex gave the dog-man an odd look. “If you want to be pedantic Ser Alicia is a Star Colonel,” he said. “As for her true rank… well, I think the question is what now?”

“Now?” Dakota rumbled. “First of all, let’s get the obvious question out of the way. Which one?” One of what was left unsaid, though everybody in the conversation knew.

Alex hesitated. While he wasn’t strictly under orders to lie to Spheroids about his origins, the knights had maintained a deliberately low profile. Still, though, he was right at the single holiest place (or second-holiest place, considering the actual Court was far away) in Clan lore, and the weight of that holiness weighed down on him.

(“Always speak the truth, even if it leads to your death,” Ser Alicia had told him at the beginning of the quest. And here at the end of the quest, what better place for a knight of the Nova Cats to die?)

“Clan Nova Cat,” he said. Dakota relaxed fractionally.

“Well, at least it wasn’t Smoke Jaguar. Those guys are dicks,” Dakota said, pulling a shocked laugh from Alex. “Well Van, I guess we can cross off ‘meeting Cousin Nicky’s wacky kids’ on the bucket list, right along side ‘fall into a fictional universe-’ OW!” he exclaimed as Vanessa hit him again.

“Right,” she said. “Ignoring mister comedian there-–” Dakota gave her a dirty look which she ignored with grace and elegance “-–why are the Cats sending out scouts? Shouldn’t that be an all-the-Clans thing?”

“We... had visions.” Alex said slowly.

“You had a vision,” Vanessa repeated skeptically. Alex shook his head.

“No, _we_ had _visions_ , the whole Clan. The Bloodnamed warriors, the scientists, merchants, laborers… maybe even our outcasts in the Dark Caste.” Alex replied. “Always the same scene: a great hill beneath a spiral galaxy, on top of which stand children flying kites. Visions are not a new thing for our Clan, but this one sight spread across all of our population… the King believes a great change is in the air, and so we consecrated knights were sent in search of the source.”

Dakota sighed and leaned against the Warthog’s hood. “I’d completely forgotten that little bit of Clan lore,” he said conversationally. “A vision-by-four applied to the entire Clan? That must’ve been a kick in the ass. You were looking for us,” he continued, a note of surprise creeping into his voice. “That’s why you surrendered.”

“One of three groups searching the Periphery,” Alex replied.

“Right. Well, Captain Harris, I think we need to cut this visit short and book an appointment with XCOM. They need to know this stuff, quiaff?”

“Aff,” Alex said with a bit of a sigh. “I admit I was hoping to see a bit more of Seattle. I believe Amaris had the Space Needle torn down because... well, because _Amaris_ , and I was curious to see if it lived up to the legend.”

“Well the restaurant up top’s pretty nice,” Dakota said. “Got a pretty good wine list too, and I think we could all use a drink.”

“So could the poor buggers who’re about to find out we’ve got bloody Clanners at large in the system,” Vanessa muttered darkly.

~***~

_Transcript of SMOFcon meeting, 24 December 3020:_

_(attending: SMOF-01 – SMOF-25 plus Alexander Harris, unaffiliated; Dakota, XCOM Reserves; Cynthia Luckwold, XCOM; Philip Danchekker, UNOOSA)_

**SMOF-01:** Well this is a fine how-do-you-do.

 **Luckwold:** Oh Theo, you silver-tongued devil. We have _Clans_ in Fenspace! At least a generation ahead of when we were expecting them to boot!

 **Harris:** Wait what do you mean by expecting us a generation ahead–?

 **Dakota:** Later, man, later.

 **SMOF-04:** First things first. Captain Harris, how many more Clan groups are there in the Inner Sphere?

 **Harris:** Truthfully, I do not know. There are the three Knight Companies: mine, the Blues and the Greens, all assigned to a third of the Periphery edge. There is a more formal scouting party in the Sphere proper–

 **SMOF-04:** Yes, Wolf’s Dragoons. We’re aware of them.

 **Harris:** How do you _know_ this?

 **Dakota:** _Later._

 **SMOF-04:** Please continue, Captain.

 **Harris:** Um, yes. Those are the only official parties I know of. There may be others, but I haven’t heard any rumors to that effect. It is possible, likely even that there are deserters, bandits and whatnot filtering in from Clan space, but that’s not what I would call official. Or organized. Or much of anything, really.

 **SMOF-07:** We’ve heard Captain Dakota’s report. Are you here officially on behalf of the Clans as a whole?

 **Harris:** No, as far as I know the other Clans don’t know we’re here. This is a mission given to Ser Alicia by King Abram himself, by the Nova Cats for the Nova Cats alone.

 **Luckwold:** “King” Abram? Not Khan Abram? Also, why “Ser” Alicia as opposed to her touman rank? Or the rank she uses in the Inner Sphere?

 **Harris:** That’s... a difficult question to answer.

 **SMOF-01:** Please try, Captain.

 **Harris:** Well, it starts with the vision, you understand? Our Lady of the Hill came to each of us and asked if we wanted to be her knight.

 **Luckwold:** And you said yes?

 **Harris:** Every member of my company agreed to take up the Lady’s banner, yes. It was a prerequisite for taking this mission. Well, when this started we didn’t understand it, I think. Not entirely. We knew the Founder’s caste system: Warrior, Scientist, Merchant and so on, but we didn’t know what “knight” meant. So we started researching.

 **SMOF-03:** Oh, lord. You didn’t have historical archives, did you?

 **Harris:** Some, but they were mostly about the Star League and the Hegemony, as you might’ve expected. We had quite a few fictional archives to work from, though.

 **SMOF-07:** So you picked through and started building your knightly culture based on scraps of history and stories?

 **Harris:** Well… I’m abbreviating things a little but, yes. That’s what I’m saying.

 **SMOF-06:** _(laughing)_ This, Captain, is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

 **Luckwold:** Quiet, you.

 **Harris:** I’m not sure I understand.

 **SMOF-01:** All will be revealed in good time, Captain. For now, we’ll see about getting your company some time on Earth, though I’ll have to ask for no more trips to the Court for now – apparently your actions made the current residents a bit nervous.

 **Harris:** Ah, yes. Please convey my apologies.

 **SMOF-01:** All is forgiven. At some point we will need a statement of your future intent too.

 **Harris:** _Intent?_ Minister Lovegood, my King and my Knight-Colonel were very specific in our orders: to seek the Hill of Kites and defend it until our people may come there. I’ve done the first, now I need to see the second through. My Knights are at your disposal, Commander Luckwold.


End file.
